on a Jetplane
by mysticxf
Summary: Kate and Jack contemplate love and fate as they look for an escape from the lives they live. Flashback fic


Lost and its characters belong to JJ Abrams, Bad Robot and the Others. Kate and Jack contemplate love and fate as they look for an escape from the lives they live. (Flashback fic)

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Lost -- … on a Jetplane  
By Mystic  
June 18th 2006

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After years of sitting in that old tree out front, Kate was beginning to think it bent for her. She pressed her back into the gentle curve of a steady branch and leaned her head on a knob. Maybe she was just used to rough edges. She watched the leaves flutter on a breeze and closed her eyes. Being in that tree was the only time she felt like she was home.

Her legs dangled – the laces of her left sneaker loose, swaying and she sighed. Over head, she heard the engine of an airplane and she opened her eyes lazily, taking in the sun through the branches, warm on her face. She didn't know much about planes except that they were going somewhere.

Kate had never been on a plane. When her father came to pick her up, it was always by truck. Her father had a sense of adventure, a sense of nature he said you couldn't get on a plane. Planes were sterile, the technology of men who never left square boxes. Kate knew her father was afraid of them, didn't trust them, and some part of her didn't blame him. But she longed to fly. To watch clouds zip over the wings, to watch rivers snaking their way through valleys far below. To see mountains from the top, their snow covered tips glistening in the sun.

She sighed. She imagined where the plane was headed. By the angle, she wondered if it was going to one of the southern states. Maybe Georgia or Louisiana. Maybe Florida. Kate thought of all the birthday wishes she'd made to go to Disney World. Everyone else she knew had taken a trip there. It seemed like some kind of tradition. Your parents had to take you. But her mother said she didn't have money; her father would rather be in the woods and Wayne? Kate almost laughed.

Sometimes he teased her, told her he'd take her to see Mickey if she behaved, but she was old enough to know no matter how many good report cards she brought home, she'd never get there. Maybe one day, when she was older, she'd go on her own. Maybe with Tom. Maybe with their kids. Kate blinked away the image, something in her heart breaking, and she watched the sky.

Another plane passed only a few minutes later, waking her from a daydream about a tall dark-haired man who would come save her, and she watched it intently. The way it flew steadily away. Carrying people away. She wondered if people took planes to run away faster. Sometimes she'd clock how long it would take for a motorcycle to ride by, she calculated how long it would take to ride to California, to Canada, to Mexico. But planes? Six hundred miles an hour she'd once heard.

She could be in New York in under two hours.

That's where she thought this plane was going. She imagined all the people on board confident, well-dressed, happy. Kate closed her eyes and imagined New York. The tall buildings and the cold weather and all the taxi's. She smiled, knowing she'd hate it, but at least it wouldn't be here.

"Katherine!" Her mother's exasperated voice boomed from the doorway and Kate jumped, her hand reaching out to steady herself against a tree branch. "I've been calling you. Supper's on the table and it's gonna get cold."

"'Kay ma," she responded loudly, her voice cracking, making her groan as she leapt out of the tree.

Jack struggled with his tie. He wiggled it from side to side, trying to loosen it, to breathe. But it was no use. He slumped against the window, leaning as far away from his father as he could and pressed his forehead against the small window. The sky drifted by and down below he could see the farmland. Large squares divided by ditches or roads, occasionally the dot of a house would come into view and he sighed.

He imagined what it'd be like living on one of those farms. Lazily passing the days in cornfields, in trees, roughhousing with other people his age. Getting dirty. His parents didn't want him to get dirty. Father told him it wasn't healthy; mother told him it was the mark of trash. Jack thought it looked fun. Always had. As a kid he'd snuck out of his room occasionally.

He'd never climbed a tree. The bark felt rough against his hands as he made his way down and when he reached the floor, he saw where it had smudged the front of his polo shirt. They expected him to be doing his homework. Algebra and Geography, and maybe taking another look at the medical books his father would leave him. A future profession already picked out for him against his will.

The boys in the field looked at him oddly. Mark was there, a baseball bat in his hands and one eyebrow raised curiously on his head. He started to ask a question and Jack looked over his shoulder before giving him a lopsided grin. "I just wanna play," he said, his head shaking from side to side.

When he got home, they were waiting for him. Of course they were waiting for him. His father took one look at him, one whiff of his sweat and he got that look. That disappointed look Jack hated. Neither one said a word, they just left him there. His own guilt and embarrassment eating at him.

Tugging at his collar again, Jack stared down at the hands in his lap. They'd become adult hands too fast. He'd become an adult too fast. He imagined falling in love with a girl who could give him back his freedom. A bright-eyed girl who climbed trees and got dirty – made it known to him that it was alright to be. With a sigh he resigned himself to looking back out the window. She was somewhere down there, in one of those fields, he knew. And the chances…

"Jack!" His father shouted, a laugh mingling with shock. "You know, daydreaming is the sign of a weak mind."

"Sorry, dad," Jack responded, turning back to take the college brochures from his hands.

Kate's hands were cuffed together under a blanket and she sat next to the Marshall as they waited for the plane to board. Jack gripped his ticket in one hand, his other rubbing his forehead as he listened, wanting nothing more than for this all to be over. They sat across from one another, their eyes on the ground in front of them, watching the circular motion of a wheelchair as it passed, both too lost in their own worlds to look up.

"Now boarding Group C for Oceanic flight 815…" a friendly Australian voice prompted.

He stood just as she did and she grunted when the Marshall put a vice grip on her arm. Jack glanced up, locked eyes with her for just a moment, and he smiled. Kate smirked back, knowing that in any other situation, she might have asked him where his seat was, made some joke. He raised a hand, his head bowing and she felt her cheeks flustered. If only he knew, she managed to think before the Marshall pushed her forward.

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Finis 


End file.
